Prepare to Be Blinded

...by the cuteness: Still have your retinas intact?

All in all, it was a good day. The Girl says it was "a bad day," but admits that there were good things.

Of course, the more things change, the more things stay the same. Whether we live one block away or many miles, we are always late for school. I left lots of time, but my map-reading skills are right up there with my oven-cleaning skills and we screeched into the parking lot at 9:05.

We had done a lot of prep work beforehand about what to do if there were bullies or she had questions, so she had a bit of a foundation, but she had never seen the school. We headed to her locker and installed Mom Teddy on the top shelf. She was quite fine until we got to the classroom - the sight of all the other uniformed children on the carpet was a bit overwhelming. So I sat with her on the edge of the carpet for awhile.

Her teacher introduced her to the class and said, "Everyone, this is The Girl, our new friend from Canada. We will all introduce ourselves to her later." Of course, this was all in French, so the only word The Girl understood was "Canada," upon which utterance she began nodding vigorously. I whispered a translation, and she relaxed a bit.

She gave me permission to leave, and just as I did her teacher asked her "comment ca va"; The Girl understood, but couldn't quite manage the French yet, so she gave a timid thumbs up, and I left her there.

At the end of the day, her teacher assured me that The Girl had done very well and that she fit right in. The Girl is a bit unsure about eating cafeteria food, but today was pizza, so it's not an outright rejection.

As far as the rest of the day, I believe I shall play a round of "The Glad Game." For those who were not lucky enough to have an annual Christmas reel-to-reel movie crammed along with an entire school into a hot and stinky gymnasium, this game (from the movie "Pollyanna") consists of twisting any circumstance, no matter how negative, into something positive:

1. I am glad that I got lost so many times today. I am becoming quite adept at righting myself after taking the wrong direction down the interstate.

2. I am glad that our household goods are only arriving on Saturday. This means that I will really enjoy the novelty of having a home and not a hotel room.

3. I am glad that it took me a whole three hours of being alone with The Boy before I was tempted to Google "Minneapolis daycare options." This suggests I may be able to increase my tolerance to the entire day.

4. I am glad that Target has their bathing suits on sale. Nobody should have to pay more than $10 for the horror of an emergency bathing suit purchase at the end of season.

5. I am glad that I packed some extra pairs of underwear. Even though I have a total of three outfits that are not temporarily unavailable (see #3), I will still feel fresh and clean.

A final treat for you: this was the scene to which we awoke this morning. Again, shield your eyes from the cuteness.